[1][2] Pool moved back to Dallas in 1943 and had to put his law career on hold while he volunteered for duty in the U.S. Army Air Corps.

In 1947 Pool took his experiences in helping his father's business and put them to work opening his own down comforter refurbishing company in Ennis, Texas.

In early 1959 Pool also tried his hand at Dallas real estate and later that year he dabbled in oil drilling in southeast Kentucky.

[1][2] Pool began his political career in 1952 by running for the District 51, Place 5 seat in the Texas House of Representatives from Dallas County.

This law allowed Lyndon Johnson to simultaneously run for re-election to his Senate seat as well as for the Democratic nomination for the US presidency in the 1960 election.

[1][2][8][9] Pool was an unsuccessful candidate for U.S. representative from the 5th District of Texas (Dallas County) in 1958, losing in the Democratic primary to Barefoot Sanders.

Pool spent two months immersing himself into the flood control data that he had compiled when he was in the Texas legislature co-authoring the Trinity River Act of 1955.

[14][16][17][2] In his report Pool advocated for a navigation canal for shipping on the Trinity River from Fort Worth to the Gulf of Mexico which was a popular idea in the 1950s and 1960s before it fell out of public favor in the 1970s.

He called out "polluter cities" in the 18,000 square mile Trinity Basin that were the result of insufficient policing of the watershed and inadequate water conservation facilities.

"[14][3] Director Frank E. Smith of the Kennedy-Johnson Natural Resources Advisory Committee's office confirmed receipt of Joe Pool's report on December 20, 1960.

[23] Pool served in Congress from January 9, 1963, until his death from a heart attack on July 14, 1968, at Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas.

During this time, he traveled to Vietnam to inspect postal facilities serving troops there,[30] and fought for investigation of federal government research and development contracts.

[32][33][34] Pool co-authored the U.S. House of Representatives funding bills starting in 1966 for land acquisition of 18,000 acres to develop Dallas/Fort Worth Regional (International) Airport.

With civil right activists being harassed in the south early in 1965 before the Ku Klux Klan HUAC hearings began, Pool predicted his House Un-American Activities Committee would vote as early as March 1965 to investigate terrorist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Minutemen (anti-Communist organization), the Black Muslims, and the American Nazi Party.

Pool made the statement in the wake of President Lyndon Johnson's suggestion that a congressional committee might well look into the Klan's activities.

Pool further declared, "I feel that when any organization which have philosophies, 'which lead' to anarchy are exposed to the American people, they lose what influence they might have had."

Pool, as acting chairman of the committee investigating the Klan, charged the leaders with contempt of Congress when they refused to bring subpoenaed records to the hearing.

[39] Pool added that the Internal Revenue Service and the Post Office Department are expected to examine committee findings for possible violations by the leaders.

In a speech before the Dallas Federal Business Association members Pool stated that during the Klan hearings he has observed "a flagrant disrespect of values which are meaningful to me--law and order, respect for fellow human beings, justice and the American way of life.

"Our goal is to provide full information and legislative recommendations to Congress in order that we may effectively cope with the problems the Klan organizations are creating in our nation," Pool relayed.

In February 1966 Chairman Joe Pool in his Washington D.C. office received a Western Union telegram from a Klan supporter from Midland, Texas.

The second time Joe Pool became a national figure was in August 1966 when he was named to chair a sub-committee that would hold hearings on his bill, H.R.

12047, to make it a federal crime to aid anyone engaged in an armed conflict against the United States in time of undeclared war.

Congressman Pool's HUAC hearings exemplified the tensions that the Vietnam War and race relations produced in the 1960's and gave him his moments of celebrity.

Joe Pool Lake is a fresh water impoundment (reservoir) located in the southern part of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex in North Texas.

[50] The lake had been a subject of delays caused by property owners refusing to sell to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, environmental lawsuits, and a lack of funding in the early 1970s.

[1][2][51] On May 24, 1986, before being open to the public, a ceremony with food, music, cannons, and speeches was held to dedicate the new Joe Pool Lake.

[1][52] Throughout Pool's career in Washington, Dallas, Austin, and other U.S. congressional and Texas legislative offices constituent service was important.

9342 that the Secretary of Treasury shall pay his constituent Marie Tippit, of Dallas, Texas the sum of $25,000 in recognition by the United States of the sacrifice made by her husband, the late Officer J.D.

Tippit, of the Dallas Police Department, who was fatally wounded on November 22, 1963 while attempting to apprehend the alleged assassin of the late President of the United States, John F.